Let met know when Apple allows other Os's can use Imessage. That is when they get it fixed.

I don't currently use any Apple products, but even I can tell there is a difference between a messaging system that was built right from the start to be locked out of its competitor's OS and one which originally was platform independent, but had that feature removed.

To use a simple car analogy, if I bought a car knowing from the start it only ran on fuel brand X, so be it. If I bought a car which could run on all types of fuel, and during routine maintenance at the shop they changed a part so that it only ran on fuel brand Y, I would be mightily pissed.

Surely you can appreciate the difference.

Regarding the authority "issue" - the City of London Police seizing a domain name is no different to the Metropolitan Police seizing it, the jurisdictional "issues" are the same. The reason the City of London Police are doing this a lot is because they are highly specialised in economic crime detection, investigation and enforcement, so combating criminal level copyright infringement is in fact one of their specialities.

The problem however is the legality of the very act of the police in seizing domain names. Apparently, they do not have the power to do so. Instead, they request the "cooperation" of registrars who are threatened with possible legal sanctions in the same breath. Here is an excerpt of one of their letters :-

“Suspension of the domain(s) is intended to prevent further crime. Where possible we request that domain suspension(s) are made within 48 hours of receipt of this Alert. In respect of the information provided by us, we respectfully ask you to consider your liability and the wider public interest should those services be allowed to continue.”

I don't think you should be comfortable with the police making threats to force registrars to shut down online services in the absence of any court orders, findings of liability or any judgment that the online service is in fact against the law.

They're probably getting away with it because nobody is challenging them AFAIK.

They gotta narrow down the choices of who to inject the super soldier serum into, ya know. Save the taxpayer's money.

They ain't gonna find him on Capitol Hill, that's for sure.

Now that so many people have mobile phones it makes perfect sense to print less banknotes and use phones as digital wallets.

Perfect sense to the currency issuers and banks, who stand to save on costs associated with the production, transportation and security of physical cash, but less so to the actual users themselves. There are still numerous situations where using physical cash is still superior to digital wallets such as-

Ease of use- there is literally nothing simpler than me handing you the money, you handing me the goods. No fiddling with passwords and praying that the authenticating servers are online. Or worrying about batteries going flat in mobile phones.

Secure medium of storage- Paper money stored properly can last for on average 15 years. I have doubts whether any electronic wallet are as long lasting, not to mention the associated difficulties of maintaining your device, the apps or encountering the horror of corrupted wallets.

Easily divisible- Say my kid needs 10 bucks to buy ice-cream. I peel off a bill and hand it to him. You can't do that with an electronic wallet AFAIK.

My point being that at least in the near future, I see physical cash still playing a major part in our lives.

I hope the coins are produced somehow coupled to productive capacity. Something along the lines of open and observable ammeters on their main power plants could suffice. Of course, it'd have to be a bit more complicated than that, but it's the general idea I'm talking about

Unlikely. Even you yourself admit that you can only describe the idea in general terms. That is because "productive capacity" is a amorphous concept which cannot be quantified or measured or even defined without some controversy. Whatever standard you choose to define "productive capacity" as can and will be gamed by the countries involved since the stakes are so high- that standard will literally determine the size of their economy/wealth. Taking your example, if we link "productive capacity" to power production, expect to see a proliferation of power plants of various types and sizes all over the world as countries race to boost their share of the coins, which equate to wealth. The side effect is that excess power/energy which no one wants will be produced.

p.s. I think you mean production capacity instead of "productive capacity" but for the sake of argument have adopted your nomenclature.

Take for example, in Kenya the M-Pesa, the leading form of mobile payment system is widely adopted and mobile phones are used to pay for things such as public transport, school fees, rent, money transfers, to get loans etc. It is so successful that it was launched in other countries like Tanzania, Afghanistan and India.

And M-Pesa is private owned, not a government project.

Oh, and M-Pesa is apparently now going into the digital currency market proper by integrating with bitcoin.

There is no reason why Ecuador cannot do the same.

Thanks for sharing.

I was intrigued enough to look up the reasons why Ecuador made the switch to USD.

For those who are interested, TLDR, in 1999 their economy tanked, their local currency sucre was losing value every day and the locals were converting the sucre they had to the more stable USD. The announcement only made official what was already happening anyway.

Sources:-
On A Roll: Ecuador's gamble with the U.S. Dollar
The effect of dollarization in Ecuador

You are using the wrong measure.

The cast of BBT are not being paid that much because they are good at acting.
They are being paid that much because collectively, they enable the BBT show to continue being produced, which show generates substantial amounts of income for their corporate overlords through advertising, merchandising, syndication and whatnot.

The "hundreds of thousands" of other better actors you allude to sadly do not have this earning potential and hence, do not have this kind of paycheck.

Quality of acting is irrelevant.

This is by far the most rational explanation of why the parent post's anger at the "exorbitant salaries" is unjustified.

When you buy product, you buy it as is. Whether its costs were bumped up by advertising or otherwise is beyond the control of the buyer.

Strictly speaking, it is embezzlement

Embezzlement is the act of dishonestly withholding assets for the purpose of conversion (theft) of such assets by one or more individuals to whom such assets have been entrusted, to be held and/or used for other purposes.

In other jurisdictions, this may be known as misappropriation.

Usually the burden of proof lies on the person you entrusted the property to (especially if it is a paid service) to explain what happened to it. If he can't/won't, you can invite the court to draw an adverse inference against him. Proving where it went is his problem.

Okay, here's some evidence for you. I will freely admit that if I could not have downloaded Season 3 of Game of Thrones, I would have shelled out $40 to get it on BluRay. HBO and/or the makers of the show and/or whatever retailer I would have bought the set from lost $40. I liked the shows enough to watch them but I really don't feel like paying $40 after having watched them all just to ease my commercial equivalent of a conscience. True fact and actual value lost. So what now? Can we be done with the "nobody lost anything because of downloading" argument once and for all and move on to something more substantial as a reason for both copyright reform and ethical Internet usage?

Your mistake is in assuming you speak for everyone else. Not everyone who downloads would have bought the set if the downloads were not available for various reasons (eg set not available locally, lack of interest, lack of funds). Hence, no direct link of cause and effect evidencing actual loss insofar as other cases of infringement are concerned.

In your case however, given your own admission which can be used against you, there is a direct link hence actual evidence of loss. Be happy you're not sued in court.

The bitcoins in question had a monetary value of $400 million. That is, they could be exchanged for that much at the time. $400 million buys you a lot of physical stuff.

Not true. I seriously doubt you can find anyone who is/was willing to buy all those bitcoins for $400 million. I also doubt anyone is/was willing to accept all those bitcoins in exchange for $400 million worth of physical goods.

Lets say for example I take a slug of tin and stamp it into many coins of my own making. Nobody is willing to give me anything for the coins except for my best friend, who is willing to pay me $1 for 1 coin. The true value of my coins would still be zero. You can't argue that based on that one exception, the coins I made is each worth $1.

An interesting and dangerous reminder of the nature of bitcoins. I am sure there were many bitcoin users who expressly intended to cheat on taxes and hide other criminal financial transactions.

I'm sure that users of cash and other forms of currency do not get scammed, do not get tricked, do not suffer fraud and do not lose the value of their currency of choice. Nope, perfectly safe.

And I'm sure that there are no users of cash and other forms of currency who expressly intended to cheat on taxes and hide other criminal financial transactions. Nope, all perfectly law abiding.

Oh, wait...

Lets not go overboard with the hyperbole here. All forms of convertible currency is exposed to risk.

Third party developers will be able to build mobile applications that tap into the features of Adobe's Creative Cloud, including effects such as Photoshop's "content-aware fill" and PSD file manipulation

But if you are a mobile developer coding an app which you presumably intend to profit from in some way, why would you want to put your creation at the mercy of Adobe? Not to mention the hassle of having to ensure that your app is compliant with whatever flavour of Adobe's Creative Cloud exists at the time, and having to update every time Adobe changes something.

Seems more trouble than its worth, really.